AI is absolutely bloomin' everywhere these days; doubly so if you kept an eye on CES 2026 earlier this month. There's no getting away from it, and folks are particularly keen to see what game developers think of the whole thing.
Josef Fares, founder of Hazelight Studios and director of both Split Fiction and It Takes Two, recently caught up with Chrisopher Dring at The Game Business. The subject of AI naturally cropped up, and while Fares is keen to highlight the technology's advantages in game development, he doesn't see it taking over completely anytime soon, and firmly believes that having someone with a "vision or idea" for a game is vital.
“We have been working with AI for a long time in game development. The problem is the generative AI. If [an AI tool] is helpful to get your vision out there, I don’t see why we shouldn’t look into it. But… it’s the generative AI that people are a bit like…
“It’s really hard to answer. If you look at Midjourney, for instance, when it came out it was so impressive. And five years later… the bar hasn’t gone up much. Maybe this is the limit of it.
“You get someone generating a game concept and saying, ‘oh look what might happen in five years?’ But who knows? In five years, maybe it’s going to be like Midjourney… not much better.
“At the end of the day, you still need someone that has a vision or idea of what game it is. I don’t see AI taking over. I don’t. But it’s really hard to answer. Who knows what happens in the future?”
Of course, we think it's worth pointing out that developers do, in fact, have a choice in the matter. Mentioning the idea of AI "taking over" makes it sounds like an inevitability, but we're not quite sure that's entirely accurate. Here's hoping Hazelight doesn't let itself get too dragged into the weeds, anyway.
A recent image for Nintendo's own 'My Mario' collection was scrutinised for potentially using AI, however the company had since come out and clarified that it did not use the technology in producing the images.